Afghan Leader Dismisses British Plan to End Conflict

April 5, 1980

In a rare interview with a representative of the Western press, Afghan President Babrak Karmal dismissed a British-sponsored neutralization plan as an unacceptable maneuver that would serve to camouflage Western intervention in Afghanistan.

Interviewed by Wilfred Burchett forthe Manchest Guardian in Kabul, Babrak said: "An undeclared war is being waged against our country. . . . It is clear that all forms of aggression and intervention above all from Pakistan, with forces mobilized, reinforced and armed by the United States, Pakistan and China . . . must stop. If all these activites are halted . . . if all attempts directed from outside to crush the Afghan revolution are halted, then we can sit down and discuss the problem."

Meanwhile, the Soviet news agency Tass reported that the Soviet leadership has ratified a treaty with Babrak's government dealing with the "temporary stay" of Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Those troops helped put Babrak in power last December.

The brief Tass report was the first official reference to the existence of an agreement defining conditions for the presence of Soviet military forces in that country.

In other press reports from Moscow, the Soviets charged the United States with supplying Afghan rebels with potentially lethal "chemical weapons." Details of the report suggested that the alleged "toxic agents" might be U.S.-made riot control gas.

A U.S. State Department spokesmandenied that any such weapons had been supplied to the Afghan rebels.